Measuring a variety of attributes of animals, such as cows or beef cattle, is of high importance for farmers. Techniques aimed at determining animal traits, such as the identification of a specific animal, recognizing and determining the position of an animal or a specific part of it, or physical characteristics of an animal defining its economic value, have been developed, and are disclosed, for example, in the following patents.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,412,420 discloses a technique for measuring three-dimensional (3D) phenotypic characteristics of dairy cows. A 3D image is created by projecting several laser light beams and measuring their reflections with a single laser camera that scans a surface area of the animal and measures the distance at each point between the camera and the surface of the animal. By this, a total modeling of the animal's surface is provided. The camera generates a detailed map of the entire animal within the scanned space, assigning intensity and range values to each surface point that receives a laser signal. The obtained image is then analyzed by linear, angular or volumetric means. There are currently 15 conformation traits that are measured for Holstein Cows. After each trait is measured by the system, it is then converted to a scale of 1 to 50. Known as the rating of each trait, this conversion to a scale of 1 to 50 compares each cow measured to those represented within the biological extremes of the breed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,234,109 discloses an apparatus and method for recognizing and determining the position of a specific part of an animal, e.g., the teat of a dairy cow, to guide an animal-related device towards the determined position of said part. The apparatus comprises a source of structured light for illuminating a surface region to enable identification of this specific part. The source of structured light is obtained by using a grid associated with a light-emitting element. The apparatus also comprises an image capture and processor means arranged to capture and process at least one image formed by said light, and control means to determine if the illuminated object includes said specific part by comparing the image of the illuminated object to reference criteria defining different objects, and if so, to establish the position thereof of the illuminated object.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,483,441 and 5,576,949 disclose a system for animal evaluation through image acquisition. According to this technique, an animal is evaluated to determine characteristics or traits thereof. The animal is evaluated as it moves through first and second scenes that correspond to different first and second fields of view along two essentially perpendicular lines of sight. Evaluation is carried out by comparing the so-obtained gray level to certain threshold values.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,398,290 discloses a system for measuring intramuscular fat in live cattle by an ultrasound device to produce ultrasound image of an interior muscle portion. The image contains speckles caused by the scattering of ultrasound waves by the intramuscular fat. Image data representative of the speckles are analyzed in a computer in terms of pixel gray areas to produce a measure of intramuscular fat.
The monitoring of body condition score (BCS) of dairy cows is a very important aid in defining their herd management. The BCS is known as a herd technique for determining the energy balance of dairy cows to define inter alia the amount of food needed for a particular group of dairy cows. According to this technique, an area on the cow's body in the vicinity of the tail head is inspected. This technique consists of the visual inspection of the vicinity of the tail head carried out by a skilled person, who determines the dairy cow's condition and assigns to the specific cow a corresponding mark from several accepted marks. The results of such a manual inspection strongly depend on the experience of the specialist carrying out the inspection.